Glee Airs Performance of Jonathan Coulton's "Baby Got Back"

[Palademon]

I am capable of enjoying Glee, and I am still going to make it my duty to make sure any Glee fans I see on facebook praising that song end up hating it.

 

[Falseprophet]

What a ridiculous artifact of US copyright law that an arranger isn't entitled to royalties or even so much as credit for their original work. Maurice Ravel is turning in his grave.

 

[thejarofdirt882]

I'll admit it. I quite like Glee. But I hate Fox.

A lot of the guys in the background seem like complete arseholes. And Ryan Murphy has his head so far up his arse it's ended up looking like it's in the right place. This is a completely dick move. Just because some songwriters/labels send you their music to consider using for 'good' exposure doesn't mean everyone is willing to throw themselves at your feet. As for "happy for the exposure", YOU DIDN'T GIVE HIM CREDIT HOW IS THAT EXPOSURE? Fuck's sake

 

[Tharwen]

They removed the duck quack and "Johnny C" line for this version...

 

[Albino Boo]

What a ridiculous artifact of US copyright law that an arranger isn't entitled to royalties or even so much as credit for their original work. Maurice Ravel is turning in his grave.

Arrangers are entitled to royalties and credit for their work if they have asked the owner of the copyright for permission and pay royalties on their work. Now this is my guess at what happened Glee went to the publishers of the original to negotiate for rights to use that first, after all their is no point going to the arranger before getting the rights to the original. At which point they discovered Copland had not any legal right to use the original and had not being paying royalties. So Copland has no copyright, but the publishers probably won't sue him because he can use the parody defence that was used in the 80's for an explicit rap version of stand by me. Until such times as a court case is heard, Fox can only pay and give acknowledgement to the properly constituted copyright holder. Further more, any statements that Fox make on the subject could be used in a court case between Copland and the publisher. The safest thing to do is what Fox have done.

 

[Steve the Pocket]

He should be happy for the exposure, eh? Where have I heard that line before?

Oh yeah, the pro-piracy crowd. "It's not stealing; it's giving them free publicity! Even though I only listen to/watch it privately in my home. And even if I did talk it up afterwards, I'd still be doing that if I had paid for it."

Yeah. Give 'em hell, is all I can say.

 

[sethisjimmy]

It's like he says.

Happy for the exposure? What exposure?

If he gets no credit how is this giving him exposure at all?

This is just lazy and sad.

 

[Eri]

So is there anything at all from stopping him from copy pasting songs from Glee, and selling a "new original album"? After all, if it's just a cover, it doesn't matter right?

 

[XMark]

In response to this theft, I will... uh... continue to not watch Glee?

Heh, you know what? I'm pretty sure the producers of the show, not being in touch with the nerd/gamer community, probably thought that Coulton was a nobody, and they'd be able to steal his work without any kind of a stink being raised about it. Kind of reminds me of back when Timbaland ripped off a chiptune artist, probably thinking the exact same thing.

Although Coulton is a much bigger name thanks to his work on the Portal soundtracks, so this should be fun to watch

 

[Darks63]

Not really surprised as much as a i like JC i didnt think he had much to stand on legally and glee being super popular will make it hard for him to fight them.

OT: since Glee did baby got back can we expect them to homogenize "put em on the glass" next?

 

[Zeraki]

"Be happy with the exposure!" -refuses to credit Coulton-

I didn't think it was possible for my hatred for Fox to grow any larger than it already was. Thanks for proving me wrong guys!

 

[dagens24]

The consumer steals a song for personal use, they get sued for a million dollars. The corporate machine steals a song to make money off of it, nothing.

FUCK.THAT.SHIT.

 

[Zombie_Fish]

Instead, he was told that he should be "happy for the exposure."

I'm sure Fox is just as happy for their exposure when they take down YouTube videos that infringe on their copyright, regardless of whether or not the videos credit them.

 

[kaizen2468]

So they're allowed to sell a cover of a cover and make profit off of it? That seems pretty retarded to me.

 

[mrjoe94]

The worst part about all this is Coulton probably would have happily let them do it with his permission.

 

[Nouw]

You know you're doing something wrong when Kanye West gives more credit to the artist of the song he uses.

 

[Robot Number V]

OK, I have a couple of problems with that:

1. "Happy for the exposure"-As many people have already pointed out: WHAT FUCKING EXPOSURE??! YOU DIDN'T CREDIT HIM, YOU ASSHOLES.

2. "Their policy is not to credit covers of covers"-Well first of all, why the hell not? If you can use his music without having to pay him no matter what you do, why NOT just be decent human beings and credit him? What do you have to lose?

2.a. "Covers of covers"-Except they didn't "cover" Coulton's song-They just played his song. Like, the EXACT same song. The only thing they re-recorded was the vocals.

This is kind of baffling to me. It seems like they could've used his music for free AND with his permission very easily, so why are they going out of their way to be massive dicks about it?